Labor(less) Day

Wow ... has it really been a month since I last wrote anything? Oops. I can't say that I have a very good excuse for not keep the blog up to date either - my life has been much less busy during the past few weeks. For almost a month now I have been working in Scripps Mercy's outpatient urgent care clinic. The nice thing about it is that it is more like normal business hours - 8 to 5, Monday through Friday, weekends off; the other side to it is that it isn't always quite as exciting or interesting as working in the hospital. Being an urgent care clinic, we should theoretically be seeing problems that are urgent - meaning, too serious to have to wait for a regular doctor's visit, but not quite severe enough to warrant a trip to the Emergency Room. While that is the case for many of the visits to our clinic, there are also more than I prefer of the following kind of visit:

Me: "So what seems to be the problem?"

Patient: "Oh, Doc, I've got some serious back pain."

Me: "I'm sorry to hear that. How long has this been going on?"

Patient: "Oh, well... probably a couple years."

Me (a little confused): "Really? Did something happen recently to really set it off?"

Patient: "No, not really. It just hurts still."

Me: "Oh. Have you seen your regular doctor about it?"

Patient: "Not yet, but I just thought I'd come in here. Hey, do you think you could prescribe me some Vicodin?"

I am beginning to understand why Vicodin is the most commonly prescribed medication of 2008.

Well, one of the nice things about working in the urgent care clinic is that if there is a holiday, you get the day off (not so if you are working in the hospital). Labor Day was a lot of fun this year. My sister was in town with her husband and kids for the weekend - they ended up coming down somewhat last-minute. Unlike some of my dear friends, we spent the day relaxing and doing fun things.

We spent part of the morning with the family at the beach. My dad and sister talked me into actually going surfing again (for the first time in about 4 years). It was beautifu

l weather and a lot of fun. The kids enjoyed it too as you can see.

After the beach, we came home for my parents' annual Labor Day BBQ. We had a bunch of friends over, swam in the pool, barbecued burgers and hot dogs, and generally enjoyed ourselves. I think my niece may have even made

a new best friend. Overall, it was a great day. The kind of day that makes it even harder to go back to work the next day.

I have one more week of work in the urgent care clinic, then I'll be off to ENT.